something of treachery in
accepting and returning his many advances of friendship whilst all
the time he was secretly affianced to the girl for whose hand Jacob
had made formal application, and had been formally accepted, though
for the present, on account of the maiden's tender years, the
matter was allowed to stand over.

With Walter Cole there was no such hindrance to friendship, and
just at this juncture Cuthbert prosecuted and confirmed his
intimacy at that house by constant visits there. He was greedy of
information and book learning, and in this narrow dim dwelling,
literally stacked with books, papers, and pamphlets of all kinds,
and partially given over to the mysteries of the printing press,
seldom worked save at dead of night, Cuthbert's expanding mind
could revel to its full content.

He devoured every book upon which he could lay hands--history,
theology, philosophy; nothing came amiss to him. He would sit by
the hour watching Anthony Cole at work setting type, asking him
innumerable questions about what he had been last reading, and
finding the white-headed bookseller a perfect mine of information.

Controversy and the vexed topics of the day were generally avoided
by common consent. The Coles had learned through bitter experience
the necessity for silence and reticence. Everybody knew them for
ardent and devoted sons of Rome, and they were under suspicion of
issuing many of the pamphlets against the policy of the King that
raised ire in the hearts of the great ones of the land. But none of
these "seditious" writings had so far been traced to them, and they
still lived in comparative peace, although the tranquillity
somewhat resembled that of the peaceful dwellers upon the sides of
a volcanic mountain, within whose crater grumblings and mutterings
are heard from time to time.

Cuthbert's frequent visits, and the manifest pleasure he took in
their society, were a source of pleasure to both father and son;
and though they never showed this pleasure too openly, or asked him
to continue his visits or help them in their night work, they did
not refuse his help when offered, and sometimes would look at each
other and say:

"He is drawing nearer; he is drawing nearer. Old traditions, race
instincts, are telling upon him. He is too true a Trevlyn not to
become a member of the true fold. His vagrant fancy is straying
here and there. He is tasting the bitter-sweet fruit of knowledge
and restless search after